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The Busy Life of Box Canyon

December 24, 2018 by Lee Leave a Comment

Horsemen in Box Canyon
Horsemen in Box Canyon

Coming up from the Butterfield Ranch some five miles to the south, the paved turnout to the overlook of the old Mormon-built road in Box Canyon suggests an inviting stop.  Cameras do especially well here, their shutters find things everywhere, like a rattlesnake being carried overhead by a hungry raven, or a quiet cactus wren’s nest hidden among the needle-like cholla and prickly yucca.   There’s an abundance of huge barrel cactus here, once providing for—and possibly cultivated by—the stage drivers who passed through here in the 1850s carrying travelers into San Diego and Los Angeles.

Box Canyon is one of the last bursts of Sonoran Desert before reaching the coast range of California. The steep Laguna Mountains to the immediate west, at nearly 6,000 feet, create a formidable rain shadow accounting for the cold, dry air in the winter and the 100-plus degree temperatures in the summer.  In fact, the record low and high spread of Box Canyon is about 115 degrees, which makes it a candidate for the most extreme temperature variation in Southern California. On most days, however, the temperature in Box Canyon is moderated by comfortable breezes that mix the hotter air from Mason Valley below with the cooler air from Blair Valley above.

As the great wheels of the stage scraped through the gouged-out rock, still visible in some places in the canyon today, passengers anticipated the pleasant ride just around the bend through what are now Blair, Earthquake and San Felipe valleys.  From the “Journal of San Diego History,” San Diego Historical Society Quarterly, July 1968, Volume 14, Number 3:

On their long march from Council Bluffs, Iowa, to San Diego, in January 1847, the Mormon Battalion hacked out, with axes, a way for their wagons through the narrow chasm in the rocks, which, until then, had been a foot too narrow for vehicles.  Box Canyon became, thereby, the first wagon road into Southern California, and prairie schooners, with their shuddering white tops, creaked through it like ships through a canal. There were only inches to spare, even for Butterfield’s Concord stage coaches.

Just north of the small parking area is a short, gentle trail to a couple of partially enclosed pit toilets.  It’s also an area we note is a garden of yucca blooms and core wildlife best seen in the springtime.  To the south of parking is a gentle trail to an observation point above the original road where its hand-tooled engineering can be seen.  A short distance up the canyon, the last few bends in the canyon take a hiker along the historic road (see photo of riders).

The slideshows below are set to play automatically, but you may stop them at any time or jump into any photo by clicking on its frame in the film strip.  Click on the arrow ⇒ button lower right of the film strip for enhanced views of the photos.

All photos this page by Barbara Swanson.

<b>Bordered Patch  butterfly</b> <b>Cloudless sulfur butterly</b> <b>Painted Lady butterfly</b> <b>Skipper butterfly</b> <b>Painted Lady caterpillar</b> <b>A fluorescent desert sky</b> <b>A female phainopepla</b>

 

Box Canyon, a historical site and a nature trail, is accessed from a turnout on County S2 (see map below)—possibly San Diego County’s least-used highway. County S2 runs from Warner Springs to the north into Imperial County to the south (and farther into Ocotillo)—providing visitors a non-crowded, highly scenic route to explore the western and southern beauty of the Anza-Borrego State Park.  The road is also known as the Great Overland Stage Route.

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Other desert visits

Bisnaga WashTHE WINTER BEAUTY OF ANZA-BORREGO
A great place to visit n Anza-Borrego State Park  in the winter months is Bisnaga Wash, flowing down from Whale Peak under the crisp, clear skies of the southeastern area of the park.  Soaring hawks, the edges of storms collapsing at the rain shadow, and ebullient rainbows disappearing into the blue sky.

Bisnaga is an Americanism for the Spanish Biznaga, which refers to tall barrel cactus.

AMBOY CRATER IN WILDFLOWERS
A volcano flowing with neon green floats on a sea of  yellow desert sunflowers. A season of spectacular rains may come only every five to eight years in the Southwest, producing prodigious blooms that bring sightseers from around the world and their insect pollinators from seemingly out of nowhere.

Amboy Crater was featured in a Huell Howser California Gold episode about Amboy in 1993 and the volcano itself came to life as a set location for the 1959 movie Journey to the Center of the Earth.

Female Phaianopepla guards nestTHE BUSY LIFE OF BOX CANYON
The little narrow canyon  was in the 1840s the best route into San Diego from Arizona and Texas, and still showcases the Mormon Battalion hand-built road which became the route of the Butterfield Stage line.  The stage route can be easily seen today, struggling between the narrowing canyon walls as it makes its way into Blair Valley and once-upon-a-time all the way to Los Angeles.

Somehow, an abundance of wildlife and color have been left behind, and thrive after 175 years, for time has not diminished the richness of the environs here, as they were for San Diego’s early settlers, which include an unusual density of barrel cactii, birds and and buzzing pollinators among a diverse garden of flowering plants and juniper trees.

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Selected song for this post

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N4n2ETFoLHE

Climbing through box canyon in the direction of the horsemen (left), one soon arrives in beautiful Blair Valley, home to RV and tent camping today, but at one time a place of native habitation—and a place for a family that re-created native habitation.  In addition to the pictographs which can still be seen at the base of Ghost Mountain, you may hike the trail to the small mesa atop the mountain where surviving artifacts of the South family home can be explored.  For one of many blogs about the South home, try a visit to: The Lure of Ghost Mountain. The link will open in a separate tab.

Clint's Rainbow Box Canyon
A rainbow appeared from the crest of Box Canyon as we entered into Blair Valley.

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A quote for this month

“Do all the good you can, by all the means you can, in all the ways you can, at all the times you can, to all the people you can, as long as you ever can.”

John Wesley

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